Prototypical Autism Is Transformatively Atypical

The depiction of prototypical autism as presented by Laurent Mottron’s research team is a promising concept with a few notable shortcomings. The Mottron team’s depiction does provide a lucid and useful outline of what autism tends to look like close at hand, and furthermore, this depiction posits a positive framework for regarding autism as a non-defective and viable branch of human development, championing the constructive use of autistic characteristics to support developmental progress. Nonetheless, the notion of prototypical autism could be improved by taking a more specific approach to explaining atypical autistic perception, incorporating the idea of conspecific perception to delineate more clearly the non-autistic and autistic perceptual traits. Also, prototypical autism could be recognized as outlining perceptual and behavioral characteristics that mirror the perceptual and behavioral characteristics standing at the foundation of humanity’s turn towards behavioral modernity, highlighting autism’s role in the ongoing mechanisms of human transformation. Given the Mottron team’s silence on this latter idea, this essay concludes with some thoughts on how the conventional practices of modern science preclude researchers from taking a more revolutionary approach to their endeavors.